The UAE has been consistently creating new history by closing the gap related to pay disparities between men and women in the same workplace or businesses of the same value over the last three years.
The country was ranked 18th globally and 1st regionally in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2020.
On 18th September, the UAE will unite with the world to celebrate the International Equal Pay Day, an annual United Nations (UN) approved annual occasion to intensify efforts to empower women and girls while remove all obstacles to achieving equality between them and men in the labour market.
As per the World Bank’s 2021 “Women, Business and the Law” (WBL) report, the UAE topped the MENA region rankings due to several legislative reforms related to women’s economic participation enacted over the last three years.
The annual report comprises eight indicators, namely Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension, structured around women’s interactions with the law as they begin, progress through, and end their careers.
UAE’s consistent efforts in this domain has rewarded the country with considerable growth on the Index. The country scored points out of 100 this year, compared to 56 and 29 it had scored in the 2020 and 2019 editions respectively.
The country also earned perfect score (100) on Movement, Workplace, Wages, Entrepreneurship, and Pension indicators.
The Decree of Federal Law No. 06 for 2020 which came into effect in September 2020 states that ”Female employees shall receive wages equal to that of males if they perform the same work or another of equal value.”
Apart from equal pay, the UAE Labour Law has also taken off all restrictions imposed on women working at night and working in complex jobs such as mining, construction, manufacturing, energy, agriculture and transportation, to give women the right to work in these industries. The UAE Labour Law stands against terminating women or warning them at workplace for their pregnancy.
Over the years, Emirati women have shown great response to government policies supporting them. 64 percent of workers in the education sector are now women. They also constitute 31 percent of the total workers in the finance, banking and insurance activities.
80,025 licenced companies in UAE are now owned by women. Meanwhile, 21.5 percent management positions and 32.5 percent of workers in specialised professions are also women.
Most Read: Qahwa; Arabic caffeine kick with a traditional touch!